


Anywhere But Here

by dracoqueen22



Series: Bumper Cars [2]
Category: Transformers (Bay Movies)
Genre: Angst, Background Character Death, Grief/Mourning, M/M, Pre-Series
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-31
Updated: 2015-01-31
Packaged: 2018-03-09 18:38:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,040
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3260210
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dracoqueen22/pseuds/dracoqueen22
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jazz hasn't changed his mind yet, and he isn't going to.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Anywhere But Here

**Author's Note:**

> Originally inspired by a flash fiction prompt on my livejournal.

“Are you sure you want to do this?”   
  
Jazz isn't surprised by the question. Prowl has been asking him for the past several decaorn, while all of Iacon has been in a flurry of frantic activity and last minute preparations. And yet, Jazz still hasn't changed his mind, nor is he going to.   
  
“This could take vorns,” Prowl continues, field giving the edge of a desperate mech. “You may never return.”   
  
Jazz cycles a slow ventilation, lowering his helm. At his side, his fingers draw into his fist, save for the hand that remains, palm pressed against cool metal.   
  
“Maybe I don't want to,” Jazz admits.   
  
A gust of cold despair weighs down Prowl's field. “You do not mean that.”   
  
He offlines his visor. “Yeah, Prowl, I do,” Jazz answers with more honesty than he has allowed himself as of late.   
  
His fingers trace the lines and curls of a designation over and over again, etched as they are into the massive memorial in Iacon's city-center. There's more room on the bottom and on the other side for more designations, more fallen mechs. Even so, Jazz is sure this memorial is never going to be large enough.   
  
They're still killing each other, Autobot and Decepticon alike.   
  
He drops his hand.   
  
“Isn't anythin' left here on Cybertron,” Jazz continues, taking a step back, several steps in fact, but no matter how much he backpedals, he's still in the shadow of the monument. “Nothing but emptiness and death. The only bit of hope is somewhere out there.”   
  
He makes a vague gesture, skyward and spaceward.   
  
Prowl moves closer to him, sensory panels twitching up and out. “I cannot decide who is more foolish,” he says with a sharpness that dictates his loss of composure, one very few are allowed to witness. “You or Sideswipe.”   
  
A bitter laugh escapes Jazz before he can stop himself. “Yeah, too bad for Siders he can't go. I know he's got as much reason as I do.” He shakes his helm. “At least, he has something else to keep him alive.”   
  
There's a startled burst of Prowl's energy field. He senses, more than sees, Prowl reach for him, but Jazz twists his frame, sidesteps the motion.   
  
“Jazz..”  
  
“No, Prowl. Stop. Just... stop.”   
  
He backs another pace, closer to the monument, further from comfort. The silence between them is heavy and Jazz hates it, but carries it on his shoulders because he needs that burden, too.   
  
“I know what you're gonna say and I've heard it before and I don't want to hear it again,” Jazz finally says, words spilling out of him faster than he can process, than he can give permission, and it occurs to him that he doesn't sound like himself. That he sounds like--  
  
He whirls toward Prowl, visor glinting with the emotion he doesn't dare set free in his field, and it aches the way Prowl looks at him, sympathy and pity both.   
  
“Blue's gone,” Jazz says on the raggedy edge of a ventilation. “Nothing's gonna bring him back. And since I gotta keep livin', I might as well make it worth somethin'.”   
  
Prowl's optics cycle wide. His lips part, sensory panels jerking. “Jazz, you weren't--”  
  
“No.” He cuts off the tactician, knowing exactly what Prowl is going to suggest. “No, I'm not that stupid.”   
  
_Not like Sideswipe_ , his traitorous processor whispers at him. Not as brave as Ratchet had been, or that cowardly either.   
  
“But lately,” Jazz admits, “I'm wishin' I had been.”   
  
“It's not your fault.”   
  
Jazz's plating lifts and clamps, drawing tight around his frame in response to his self-defense sub-routines. “Everyone keeps sayin' that but ya know what? No one else was there. No one saw what I saw.”   
  
It's an argument they've had too many times before and he reads the concession in Prowl's field before he sees it in the downward tilt of Prowl's helm.   
  
A rolling sigh rises up and around Jazz and he rubs his palm over his helm, feeling the weight of vorns and vorns of killing wrapped around him. “Prime's gonna need me. He's gonna need someone who can think on his pedes and react. We don't know who or what's out there. He needs my flexibility.”   
  
Prowl steps closer, the distance between them measured in micrometers. “And that it's all but a suicide mission doesn't have anything to do with it.”   
  
Anger flares, sharp and bright and Primus, it's so much easier to bear than grief.  
  
“Frag you, Prowl,” Jazz says, visor flashing, field snapping out with tangible intent. He pushes past the tactician, shoulder clipping Prowl's, barely missing the edge of a sensory panel. “You and your self-righteous speeches.”   
  
He stomps, each pede an echoing staccato around the silent memorial. He stomps to the very edge of the shadow, feeling the burn of Prowl's gaze between his shoulders, at the base of his helm.   
  
“Jazz.”   
  
He stops, though he knows he shouldn't.   
  
Jazz grinds his denta, looks down and from the edge of his optical range, he can see Prowl just behind him. The tactician hasn't moved, but his sensory panels have drifted downward, as low as they can hang. His optics have dimmed, though his faceplate is carefully free of expression.   
  
“Be careful,” Prowl says, and there's a tightness in his vocals that can't be concealed. “I've already lost one brother. I can't lose another.”   
  
Guilt crashes with despair and clings to the last, thin tendrils of hope.   
  
“I'm not makin' any promises,” Jazz bites out.   
  
Prowl says nothing else, at last bereft of questions and requests and pleas.   
  
Jazz leaves him there, in the towering shadow of thousands of fallen Autobots. Once upon a time, he might have felt guilt, but what emotions remain in his spark are too dark and twisted for something so polite.   
  
All that's left inside is a hollow pit, where his spark keeps his frame moving, but little else. His joy went with Bluestreak, and Jazz knows he'll never be the same again.   
  
Taking the mission with Prime to search for the Allspark, it probably is suicide. And maybe Prowl's right. Maybe that is what Jazz wants.   
  
It's his decision to make and no one, not even Prowl, is going to convince him otherwise.   
  


***


End file.
